Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

@GirlVersusGame Hahaha! I love that you got him back with the Russian. I actually mentioned to my Russian friend that you told me "matt" also means mother in Russian. She was very impressed, if slightly confused, by my knowledge of it, haha. As for GamerGate, frankly, you're better off not knowing. It was a total mess and a dark point in the gaming community. You can research about it at some point if you're interested, but it was simply incredibly toxic and sexist.

@Ravix You keep telling me you're going to do long replies only to send me short ones! I feel like you're leading me on. Just kidding. I appreciate whatever amount of words I can drag out of your mouth. As for your search result, I guess it will always be hard to pinpoint any person's views no matter how vocal they are. Some people can just be very flip-floppy and maybe he's one of them. I don't know, and honestly I cannot be bothered to do further research on the guy myself. I have better things to do than worry about some gaming executive who is maybe a butthole! I'll take the win in the games themselves being progressive enough.

@Herculean I realise now upon re-reading your replies that I might have come a bit accusatory. I initially read your replies with a more negative tone than you intended (now that I've read them again). Maybe I was pushing my own fear of the conversation escalating onto your replies, despite you being totally reasonable! Apologies for that.

@FuriousMachine Glad to see the hypothermia hasn't gotten to you up there! Hopefully your tags are not too overwhelming and you can catch up in no time. Or else, just ignore everyone and start fresh. I've done that one too many times on here after being absent for an extended time. 😜

@FuriousMachine I may be seeing an advanced screening of a certain Hill that is known for it's silence. I haven't watched Bone Temple yet, I didn't want to watch it in Arabic. I'm skipping Primate, exotic pets that go wild are a bit unnerving. Many moons ago I wanted more than anything to have a pet kangaroo, it took seeing one in person to understand why that was a bad idea. Primates remove fingers and faces, roos beat you like Tyler Durden. Dogs just lay there like living piles of fluff. Easy choice.

Dead to the world.

@FuriousMachine Very curious to hear your thoughts on The Bone Temple. I thought it was brilliant but can definitely see how it might go the other way!

@Tjuz Hahaha! I love that you got him back with the Russian. I actually mentioned to my Russian friend that you told me "matt" also means mother in Russian. She was very impressed, if slightly confused, by my knowledge of it, haha.

It can also mean something else, as in 'bleep your Mother', if you know what I mean? but when you said it first I thought of the former. There are many ways to swear in Russian and it's done with a kind of passion but I tend to stick with fudge, Tartar sauce, and clusterfluff. That's just because profanity is frowned upon, and you already know what the result would be if I did. People around me swear like sailors. I haven't used any in about ten years and that was singing to N.W.A. when I didn't know what any of it meant, I probably said more than fudge the police. I'd have to check the lyrics. I'm listening to MachineHead right now, he just said fudge and a whole wardrobe full others, funny timing.

As for GamerGate, frankly, you're better off not knowing. It was a total mess and a dark point in the gaming community. You can research about it at some point if you're interested, but it was simply incredibly toxic and sexist.

I think I understand. Sexism like that has always existed in Russian gaming communities, we have what you might call clear lines that wouldn't be normal in Western gaming communities but it's just an extension of how normalized sexism is as a whole (which you wouldn't like at all) I don't notice it, I've normalized it. If it's not a normal part of Western society then it doesn't belong in Western gaming. It's cultural for me, strict gender roles like I mentioned, and the same thought process sees it's way deep into gaming. This counts mainly for our own communities and since we don't exactly mix it stays in-house so it's probably not widely known? I suppose what you'd call misogyny I'd call normality, and doubly so in those gaming groups and communities. It's not a hatred, or even a toxicity either. Patriarchal perhaps, Controlling? most certainly.

For me the problem was Elitism, as in always having to be the best of the best and the top of the scoreboards, also the divide between 'we won't run with that group they are from X or Y or Z'. The divide wasn't always language and more often it was regional or global, and so I never really knew anyone from places like Germany, England etc. You might call it a cycle, one you get locked into by association and other cultural factors. On the plus side if for example I was playing Conan alone and some random clan came and smashed my home up I'd just have to ping my team and a lot of people would come online and turn that clan's home to rubble. That was one of the benefits to that Patriarchal system, as in 'you killed one of ours, we'll kill all of yours'. People always thought I was alone, I wasn't. The same for games like Rust, I'd be busy building while the guys were out. Some randomer would snipe me, an hour later their whole base and everything in it was gone and suddenly I gained yet even more materials to build with.

Similar to what I said about the nukes in Fallout76, that's why I ran two consoles. There were so many toxic groups on there, that second account was just for running Nukes. Then I'd distract the attackers with my main account, they wouldn't see the Nuke launch and they certainly didn't think I and that pinged player did it because 'I was hiding in my home'. A couple of minutes later they'd figure it out, they were in the wrong for trying to steal a base spot and harass a player. They'd send floods of messages to 'leave so we can load our main base', they'd built on the same spot and couldn't load their base unless they jumped instances. They were using broken weapons too, it took Bethesda years to remove them. I removed players like that with nukes, and without that Patriarchal system I wouldn't have had the back-up to do it.

Some of the people might have been a little bit more progressive (Latvian/Lithuanian and Ukrainian guys) but the majority of guys I ran with weren't. I don't mean verbal abuse, more like 'you are support, we'll kill this thing' if that makes sense. I've never played anything but support in multiplayer. It's not harassment either or 'girls shouldn't be on this game', it's just very defined. Or for example 'we're going off to kill and farm this thing, you need to craft food etc', which probably sounds bad but that's the way those guys were raised and I don't think you personally would like that (because I understand your feelings on gender rights and advocacy) I still don't even know what equality is, inside gaming or in the real world. I don't think that should be the case for everyone else and if people push it through toxicity then you have? or had a real problem on your hands. I'd assume they weren't raised with that gender divide? rather they adopted it or became radicalized by someone else. I haven't played with any Western gamer groups so I'm not sure how that would work, more balanced perhaps but then it depends on your idea of balance. Either way I don't game online anymore. It's probably become even more reinforced if current cultural reinforcement is anything to go on. I just know you don't want that for your world, gaming communities etc, so people should fight that kind of thinking if it's not part of their normal. And if they already did? then good job.

@Ravix I was going to say something to you then completely forgot.

I remembered. There's a medieval TV show on HBO at the moment. You'd like it. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. If you aren't already watching it.