You probably heard that I'm trying to clear the normal and heroic content of WoW without having a guild or fixed raiding groups, just with PuGs. It's going well, 6/7 normal and 5/7 HC bosses down on the second week.
Actually it goes too well. The original plan was from my girlfriend, who tested it in the earlier content with an alt healer shaman. She got a few mythic (old heroic) bosses down, when her guild had 8/14. So her pre-eliminary results were "pug raiding is possible, but definitely worse than guild raiding". Her guild was world #12K, which we considered "good". After all, that's about 150-250K players out of 7.5M, top 3-4%.
For the project she leveled a tank druid and I reactivated my old healer shaman and on the first week we killed 5 normal bosses in the first run and were happy. Then she logged to her "main" and went to raid with her guild, just to see them fail where our random group succeeded. This was surprising and unexpected. Since WoWprogress doesn't track normal kills, it wasn't obvious what is now, with the heroic kills: our pug isn't top 4% but top 1%, much better than her guild. Anyway, that's not the point today.
The point is that she was the only one who killed the boss (Butcher) in the raid. She was tanking and co-raid leading on the kill. We oneshotted him, while her guild wiped again and again. Yet the guys in her guild couldn't care less about her ideas and pressed the official strategy that is optimal, but tolerates no mistakes. Her impromptu Butcher strategy was much better for starter groups, hence the oneshot with a bunch of firstkilling puggers: only two groups, after melee get 3 stacks, the tanks move the boss to the stacked ranged and let him cleave them twice, then pull it back.
Anyway, after a bunch of wipes and they keep not caring for her ideas (despite she oneshotted Butcher and they wiped on him), she left the guild. The reaction is the epic title, which revealed that dismissing her had nothing to do with her idea, it was coming from the fact that she wasn't a man. No woman should tell the big and strong man what to do! Even if she succeeded where they were failing. No! Woman should stay in the kitchen!
It was surprising event for me. I guess this is what feminists often mention: "guys don't even notice sexism". After all - without the primitive comment - we could dismiss it as an argument between equals, followed by an incompetent decision of the raid leader (for neither teaching the members the right strategy, kicking failers, nor adopting a dumb-resistant strategy). But this way it was clear that her ideas weren't even considered, because they were coming from a woman. It's pretty sad.
However the a-social pug-raiding helps, since in a pug, everyone is an unknown person, no one knows that she's a woman, she is judged by her merit. Which is tanking a Heroic raid, oneshotting 4 bosses, two-shotting the fifth:
Her old guild? Still on 1/7 heroic. This deserves celebration:
PS: later, I did LFR (the lowest difficulty). It's a shame that this disgrace still can give me upgrades. What shows its pathetic level the best? Maybe the fact that tiger cages are closed? Or that Butcher cleaves can be ignored? Or that Bracken add can be just tanked till the end? Or maybe this discussion?
Or maybe that you can get 8 stacks of fire at Twins while standing in the whirlwind on purpose and live? Or that the melee spends most of Ko'ragh fight in a supression circle and no one cares? They are all pretty bad, but you can't beat this:
PS2: epic idiot from Pandemic Legion. It seems even the most elite is riddled with braindead ones.
Actually it goes too well. The original plan was from my girlfriend, who tested it in the earlier content with an alt healer shaman. She got a few mythic (old heroic) bosses down, when her guild had 8/14. So her pre-eliminary results were "pug raiding is possible, but definitely worse than guild raiding". Her guild was world #12K, which we considered "good". After all, that's about 150-250K players out of 7.5M, top 3-4%.
For the project she leveled a tank druid and I reactivated my old healer shaman and on the first week we killed 5 normal bosses in the first run and were happy. Then she logged to her "main" and went to raid with her guild, just to see them fail where our random group succeeded. This was surprising and unexpected. Since WoWprogress doesn't track normal kills, it wasn't obvious what is now, with the heroic kills: our pug isn't top 4% but top 1%, much better than her guild. Anyway, that's not the point today.
The point is that she was the only one who killed the boss (Butcher) in the raid. She was tanking and co-raid leading on the kill. We oneshotted him, while her guild wiped again and again. Yet the guys in her guild couldn't care less about her ideas and pressed the official strategy that is optimal, but tolerates no mistakes. Her impromptu Butcher strategy was much better for starter groups, hence the oneshot with a bunch of firstkilling puggers: only two groups, after melee get 3 stacks, the tanks move the boss to the stacked ranged and let him cleave them twice, then pull it back.
Anyway, after a bunch of wipes and they keep not caring for her ideas (despite she oneshotted Butcher and they wiped on him), she left the guild. The reaction is the epic title, which revealed that dismissing her had nothing to do with her idea, it was coming from the fact that she wasn't a man. No woman should tell the big and strong man what to do! Even if she succeeded where they were failing. No! Woman should stay in the kitchen!
It was surprising event for me. I guess this is what feminists often mention: "guys don't even notice sexism". After all - without the primitive comment - we could dismiss it as an argument between equals, followed by an incompetent decision of the raid leader (for neither teaching the members the right strategy, kicking failers, nor adopting a dumb-resistant strategy). But this way it was clear that her ideas weren't even considered, because they were coming from a woman. It's pretty sad.
However the a-social pug-raiding helps, since in a pug, everyone is an unknown person, no one knows that she's a woman, she is judged by her merit. Which is tanking a Heroic raid, oneshotting 4 bosses, two-shotting the fifth:
Her old guild? Still on 1/7 heroic. This deserves celebration:
PS: later, I did LFR (the lowest difficulty). It's a shame that this disgrace still can give me upgrades. What shows its pathetic level the best? Maybe the fact that tiger cages are closed? Or that Butcher cleaves can be ignored? Or that Bracken add can be just tanked till the end? Or maybe this discussion?
Or maybe that you can get 8 stacks of fire at Twins while standing in the whirlwind on purpose and live? Or that the melee spends most of Ko'ragh fight in a supression circle and no one cares? They are all pretty bad, but you can't beat this:
PS2: epic idiot from Pandemic Legion. It seems even the most elite is riddled with braindead ones.
28 comments:
"Yet the guys in her guild couldn't care less about her ideas and pressed the official strategy that is optimal, but tolerates no mistakes."
The official strategy only needs 2 people in the whole raid to know what they are doing. Everyone else can stand at assigned raid markers, moving quickly back to the raid marker after bounding cleave. So you really only need 2 competent people, which shouldn't be too hard to find even in a mediocre raid group. Her alternative strategy puts a lot more burden on the tanks, especially since they will have to move together to continue soaking the "Heavy Handed" attacks. It's not clear that the alternative strategy is any easier to execute than the official one.
On the other hand, her alternative strategy spreads the cleave over more targets, resulting in lower burst damage to the cleaved targets but more overall damage taken due to the DoT being on more people. This might make the damage easier to heal - if the guild had enough damage to beat the berserk, and competent tanks, but was having trouble due to melee deaths, the alternative strategy might have been a good idea to try to prevent that.
This is what happens when you pass out epic gear like candy to morons.
What happened to your girlfriend in her guild was astounding. Basically, they COULD NOT kick the morons, and as such, were left with no apparent option but to vilify the actor pointing that fact out.
You have to kick the morons from your raid. But if you cannot because you brought every member of your guild that would go and have no pool of replacements... you are left with ignoring reality and justifying even the most absurd behavior to justify the guild's existence.
Raiding in WoW is done. Once enough people figure out that the way to advance is to NOT raid with your "guild", they will just roflstomp the content as you are and Blizzard will stop wasting time on tuning it for anything other than LFR content.
This is something you gotta give Gevlon credit for and why I really enjoy some aspects of his ideology.
As long as you prove capable, your sex, race etc.. doesn't matter. The same goes if you're found uncapable.
Really, it's not a social justice warrior thing, and doesn't even deny the fact there are differences between men and women (sexes)
There are, but what you say doesn't necessarily depends of such traits linked to your sex.
Instant dismissal of something someone said based on stupid grounds is that, stupid. Listen and try if it doesn't work, if it does, perfect, if not, call the idea/person stupid and move on.
This aspect if Gevlon's ideology is definitly one I 100% back. Stop considering sex - consider what they can do, their skill, their capacities - first.
I know you may not (or just don't) care but congratulations anyway.
Yes those guys had a sexist behaviour but that is exactly because of environments. SJW solutions doesn't help as much as Gevlon, it tries to make women's worth better, like she talks diamond.
No! The solution is to consider her an EQUAL (not something SJW wants you to do...) and then listen to her. Don't take gender in the equation.
To change the mentalities of the people... I don't know what we could do. Any ideas?
Normal Imperator is also very Pug Friendly, so long as you remember to kick repeated failers, and get smart people responsible for running away with the debuff that jumps to the closest person. Much harder than all the other bosses on Heroic, that is for sure.
However, I must ask: Isn't what you are doing in Pugs essentially the job a of a good Guild Leader? Kick retards, reinforce strategies, etc.
That's a common problem in WoW and it has nothing to with periods, sex or anything like that.
It doesn't just happen to women, it happens to men all the time too.
The truth is most guild leaders are deathly afraid of losing their leadership positions. They're lost, insecure, continually blustering about how good they are and shooting down anyone the perceive as a threat to their leadership.
They think leadership is all about being the boss and giving orders. The refuse to listen to good ideas from anyone outside their core group of friends (who mindlessly support them) because they think that'll reduce their power and ultimately lead to loss of leadership.
What MoxNix said goes double for guilds that had some success, but not all of it. Which means they didn't develop an understanding of where their success came from and how to build on it. But instead developed a sort of worship of that past success.
In this case, i'd guess the core of that particular guild is pretending they are the world top raiders without actually being ones, which results in them just blindly copying "optimal" strategies, with no regard for their people's ability to execute. As this approach carried them halfway through SoO, they are sticking to it without thinking much about it.
This is a very curious case of form-essence perversion. This guild didn't own standards - because they tolerated repeated failure. Rather, the guild submitted to standards and perpetuated them, regardless of the outcome.
Agree with MoxNix, this wasn't because she's a woman, it was because she challenged authority.
If she had been known to be gay, fat or living at home, the response would have been replaced with the obvious alternative.
Additionally, I think there is something to be said for not listening to all raid members, if you switch strategies every 2 wipes, you probably won't progress either.
Not sure what the Situation in her guild was though, so it might not be relevant.
Not sure if you missed something out of the convo her guild had, but it reads to me like they didn't say anything about women having to stay in the kitchen or not being allowed to have an opinion.
To me, it sounds like she had an opinion, they rejected it, she repeatedly pushed here opinion, even though they had already rejected it, so she ragequit because she couldn't get her own way. Even if it was a guy it's a pretty terrible way to act.
Funny enough, the "Kill Both Shards, AOE Motes" is the most effective strategy in both LFR and Mythic. I try to push it in our Normals currently as a part of the Mythic preparation initiative.
I agree with your conclusion, but disagree with your way to arrive to that conclusion. Which is funny..because there is an alternative, easier explantation, rather than :"they are sexist idiots".
The explanation is: "they are social idiots, and their sexism is just a rationalization in order to protect their sociality".
Guilds...well they are feudal fiefs, where the overlord and his council run the ship as they see fit. Previously, before Wrath, they had mostly absolute power. There were only so many guilds on a server, and the serfs (guildmembers) could not justify up and leaving due to social bonds, AND pragmatic reasons.
Blizzard, however, lessened the pragmatic reasons more and more. Wrath removed attunements and multi-tier gearing. Cataclysm introduced Looking for Retards. Pandaland intruduced cross-realm raiding. Now WoD introduced practical premade cross-realm PuGging, and flex raiding.
This means that, suddenly, the guild serfs have potential freedom. The only thing that Blizzard did not add yet, but may do so soon is cross-realm guilds.
Anyway, getting back, now guilds are run mostly on social buddy-buddy relationships, and other social feelings like 'loyalty to the overlord' and 'honour'. Of course, these are not strong enough, and even social serfs start to grumble, not only asocial serfs.
This means that overlords have to protect 'their' social group against dissidents. They cannot allow 'weakness' to show, because their guild is in majority formed of socials, not asocials who recognize and respect meritocracy.
Their behaviour is clear, really. Look at the excuse they gave your GF. They dismissed her as being irrational, because it was the easiest way to explain it to their social underlings. The sexism was just a convenient vehicle. If she was a guy, I bet the reasoning would have been : "He's mad, lol.", and not "He left because of our repeated fails."
While this is obviously less sexist, it still dismisses the rational thought process of the one leaving. (Repeated fails must lead to strategy change, or the leadership is incompetent, and thus must leave.)
What is more important is the fact that this sentence, being upset due to a biological condition removes fault from everyone.
I mean, if I make a rational choice leave your raid, one of us screwed up. Either you did, and I am right, or I did by misjudging the situation. But if you say that I have a biological condition that makes me irrational, then suddenly, no one is guilty! It is just deterministic fate.
In any case, I really don't know what to make of this Blizzard trend. It might be that Blizzard wanted to help 'friends' play with each other, but might find out that other people might form a semblance of a PuG, more close to the idea that you had 2-3 years ago.
Is it not wonderful?
Meh, anyway. I look forward to going with you this week again.
-Lyxi
@Lyxi: I think Blizzard wanted real life friends to be able to play together and didn't notice what monster they unleashed. They are backing down, in Panda you could cross-realm HC raids (now Mythic) and in WoD you can't cross-realm Mythic. However this can only shield the Mythic guilds (currently 2000), the rest of the guilds are going down.
Anyway, you are right in one thing: they need some excuse because the truth (we are socials who carry M&S) isn't something they want. They rather go with sexism.
Next time if asked to go on coms say you are deaf. It's a lie but a great solution. To all the nay sayers: I don't play for money so I don't need the milliseconds improvement with coms (esport coms are full of redundancy. only the top have somewhat wfficient coms). And no if you have to adapt on the fly you better communicate fallback ahead of the match with appropriate macrosays. I started using this excuse in the pre internet BBS days (yes, no mmo and much less gaming), because being a woman in this male dominated anonymous virtual world is way to alien. It's worth the effort.
@Lyxi
So that means that the guild where I had most work ever, I was in reality a tyrant whipping everyone to do what I wanted because they had no choice?
I know you will find it funny but it sure didnt felt like that at the time but I must be mistaken.
Pug raiding always existed, I remember clearing Naxx, ToC and ICC 25 man in pugs, since at the time the lockouts were different.
I even cleared ICC 25 on a pug before I did 10 man on a guild group, did I leave the guild or pulled a ragequit because the then raid leader told me no when I asked to try something? no I didnt, I'd let fails happen during that day and sugest it next raid, I wasnt there for gear or kills, i was there because I enjoyed the persons I raided with, I had only wanted purples or boss kills to brag about, I could just as easily do a trade pug and kick whoever failed but that is nothing new.
That is an basic problem with bad leadership .. be it in an computer game or in real life. Bad leaders know deep in their heart that they are bad leaders and actually frauds comming to power without being good for that position. Most guilds / clans etc were formed by a) an cool small scale leader (becomming later incompetent with running multiple small groups at once or just caring about his "COREMEMBERS" or b) an very "power hungry idiot" .. Most of them are not trained officers/leaders in real life .. and because they know that they are gbad they use social pressure (calling all gay people fags, all germans nazis, all woman arem inior etc) they try to maintain fear and uniformity to keep their leadership ... this pattern is also true in real life .. look at some organisations .. most bad dictators etc have an regime of fear around them so nowbody challenge them ...
Gevlon: "Anyway, you are right in one thing: they need some excuse because the truth (we are socials who carry M&S) isn't something they want."
I think another layer is refusal that "official" tactics used by cutting edge progress guilds may not work or are even the best for guilds operating at a lower skill level.
Running with three tanks and more healers - as you suggested earlier - is admitting that you can't play at the same level as those guilds and for most players that is cheesing the content and not doing it "properly" instead of winning by any means possible.
Irrational people will use any -ism when it helps them defend their position.
So, someone didn't like your girlfriend's ideas and you immediately attribute that to the fact she is a woman. It must be sexism, there couldn't possibly be any other reason.
Look, its way too easy to play the victim, its way too easy to play the woman card, the black card, the gay card. These wars have already been fought, they have already been won. Everyone has equal OPPORTUNITIES. They by all means do NOT get to have equal entitlements. The availability of an opportunity is a right, the choice is then made by merit.
You are arguing your girlfriend had the merit yet did not have the opportunity. Well... that could be the case but then you would for sure have mentioned how the other players belittled her for being a woman. I saw none of that in your account of the matters.
So you jump to the conclusion... Its because she is a woman. Damn those sexist men. How could it be anything else? How?
Look, this feminist thing in gaming is a cancer. There was never any sexism in games. Most gaming men in the old days were considered nerds and virgins by women and shunned from society. Women censured themselves from gaming, other women finding the activity highly reprehensible, while men were desperate to have their girlfriends share in their hobby and share the wonderful experience of gaming.
Today some (very minority) few women that did not grow up in this culture found that as the gaming generation grew older and more mature women are now enjoying games and being accepted by society for it while they themselves are being left behind.
So they cry for feminism, they play the victim card, they try to tell you what to think and what to do and what you should or not enjoy. They want crutches, they want quotas, they want to see the playing field leveled to them (them feminist not them women) or hell be raised.
All women I know in gaming are treated with respect, they are precious few and valued for it, they are often intelligent and any moron that tries to belittle her will soon be warned by his peers since they don't want her to leave. I have played games all my life, they are a part of me, and my experience is that MOST gamers today are intelligent, educated, family oriented and open minded people (men and women).
Don't let a few loud voices mislead you. Use what you do best, analyze the raw data and you will see for yourself.
Anon(17.55):"Well... that could be the case but then you would for sure have mentioned how the other players belittled her for being a woman."
That was the case and Gevlon wrote that: "[...] she left the guild. The reaction is the epic title (of this post, so 'it must have been her period')"
"All women I know in gaming are treated with respect, they are precious few and valued for it, they are often intelligent and any moron that tries to belittle her will soon be warned by his peers since they don't want her to leave."
That the men do not want the woman to leave is the problem. They value her for being female and not for her merit in a scenario where your gender does not matter.
From the first comment: "On the other hand, her alternative strategy spreads the cleave over more targets"
But, you can just add ranged to the melee groups to spread the cleave over more targets in the official strategy.
BTW I wrote the first comment. I just overlooked the obvious.
@Camo
That was the case and Gevlon wrote that: "[...] she left the guild. The reaction is the epic title (of this post, so 'it must have been her period')"
- You are correct, it was my mistake. I misread. I still find it to be more of a lashing out move than a sexist move. The dude probably reached for the first slur that came to mind. If she was scotish or russian or young or an old dude, he would likely used that.
"That the men do not want the woman to leave is the problem. They value her for being female and not for her merit in a scenario where your gender does not matter."
- That you consider a compliment something to be a problem... is a problem. They don't want her to leave because she is contributing ,because if she is not she will likely be insulted in the same way they will insult other men.
So wanting women to stay is sexist, wanting them to leave is sexist, complimenting them is sexist, any attitude, any interaction will be deemed sexist. That will just lead to the same old segregation.
The thing is everyone gets crap in a multiplayer game sooner or later, some environments are toxic: to *everyone*. Most women will just think its because they are women... its not. They get ripped just as any other noob, they get dismissed just as any know it all newcomer to a guild/group.
That is why the ones that stay are precious, because they are the ones that understand the culture and are ok with it. And trust me those can dish out as good as they take. Its a subculture, a competitive one by nature, not everyone will like it.
That someone like Gevlon and girlfriend that likely have many years experience suddenly find one toxic comment/interaction sexist and sign of a deeper problem... is weird and likely influenced by hearsay.
So, someone didn't like your girlfriend's ideas and you immediately attribute that to the fact she is a woman. It must be sexism, there couldn't possibly be any other reason.
Well, you know, Gevlon was right there and he saw what was being said. I wasn't there, but it sounds like a perfectly believable story to me and I've got no reason to doubt it. I'm wondering why you're so eager to jump to the conclusion that it didn't really happen.
Look, this feminist thing in gaming is a cancer. There was never any sexism in games. Most gaming men in the old days were considered nerds and virgins by women and shunned from society.
Aha, there's the reason! You're bitter about your virginity and lashing out blindly at women.
But you might want to take a look at who was shunning gamers and why. It wasn't feminists who said, "Videogames are for men, and cooking is for women. Anyone who has the 'wrong' hobby isn't following their assigned gender role, and that's terrible! But anyone who spends all their time gaming/cooking clearly can't be spending time around 'normal' people of the opposite sex, so they must be virgins. That's also terrible!" The people who say things like that are called "Reactionaries". Feminists are the ones saying that you can have whatever hobby you want, as long as you don't harass other hobbyists or otherwise make them feel unwelcome in the community for no good reason.
Anyway, it's not too late for you. Have you ever considered breaking out of the "reactionary male" stereotype and taking a cooking class? Or even just listening when people talk about their problems, instead of blurting out, "You don't have a problem! That battle was won long ago!"
@Chaos
"Feminists are the ones saying that you can have whatever hobby you want, as long as you don't harass other hobbyists or otherwise make them feel unwelcome in the community for no good reason."
Uhh, no, they are saying you can have whatever hobby you want, but not the games you currently like to play because they should cater more to women to be gender fair. As often goes with groups like feminists, they want to force even things which aren't being sexist to conform to arbitrary rules. The fact is most AAA title gamers are men, men like the "the boobies", so scantily clad chicks sell games in exactly the same way as a topless muscular window cleaner sold diet coke. There's nothing sexist about it.
Nobody should harass anyone, sure, but the reactions you are seeing in the gaming world today aren't male gamers harassing people simply because they are women, they are gamers harassing people that have come marching in demanding that their hobby changes. If gamers of any age or gender want to come and play games, that's fine. If they want to ask developers to make games to their taste, that's also fine, but the second they start telling developers they shouldn't be allowed to make games catering to my taste, that's when I'll tell them where to stick it.
Anon(2.57): "They don't want her to leave because she is contributing, because if she is not she will likely be insulted in the same way they will insult other men."
So why does her gender matter then if it is about contributing or not?
"So wanting women to stay is sexist, wanting them to leave is sexist, complimenting them is sexist, any attitude, any interaction will be deemed sexist. That will just lead to the same old segregation."
No it is sexist when your judgement is influenced by the gender. Complimenting a women for her contribution is totally fine, complementing her because she is a woman is not. Just reflect if you would compliment a man in the same situation.
"The thing is everyone gets crap in a multiplayer game sooner or later, some environments are toxic: to *everyone*. Most women will just think its because they are women... its not. They get ripped just as any other noob, they get dismissed just as any know it all newcomer to a guild/group."
Are their viewpoints dismissed for coming from a new person or because the viewpoint is wrong? Most women are greeted with sexism like 'she does not know how to play because she is a woman' when you would never hear that about a new man.
"That is why the ones that stay are precious, because they are the ones that understand the culture and are ok with it. And trust me those can dish out as good as they take. Its a subculture, a competitive one by nature, not everyone will like it."
Because they tolerate and support sexism they are precious? Again in games there is no reason to care about gender, you have no advantage making decisions and pressing buttons whether you are male or female. The only time I can think of where sexism is adequate is when male and female organs matter. A man cannot breast feed or be pregnant, a woman cannot produce semen.
"That someone like Gevlon and girlfriend that likely have many years experience suddenly find one toxic comment/interaction sexist and sign of a deeper problem... is weird and likely influenced by hearsay."
I think there have been posts about sexism in the past and the rules of the PuG banned any real life topics - as no one should care about gender unless it is relevant. In WoW it is not.
@Chaos Engineer
- I already admitted I was wrong reading the way Gevlon wrote his sentence. I misinterpreted the title as being something Gevlon assumed and not something that was actually said over comms. It was indeed a toxic behavior. Ill leave that to the fact that you may have also not read my response since i'm posting as Anonymous and publish is delayed. Understandable.
"Aha, there's the reason! You're bitter about your virginity and lashing out blindly at women."
- Here is you that misread. I said they were considered and stereotyped as such, just like the 'parents basement' stereotype, when in most cases they were not. The difference in behavior of those defending today's feminism is so clear... while I was trying to compliment and accept and invite women i'm my speech, you are asking me to feel ashamed, insulting and demanding that I change.
Feminist speech regarding games (and may I sub-specify it as neo-feminist to differentiate from the very needed original feminism) is exclusive, it is not by all means about having whatever hobby you want, its not about equality. They, neo-feminists, want everyone to only have the hobbys they approve and only enjoy them in the "right" way, "right" being whatever they say. They are the ones lashing out and demanding people to change and be reactionaries.
Harassment is a part of gaming since long. Trolling, cheesing, griefing... these are all (toxic) cultures that arose in multiplayer games. Who can forget the famous Ultima Online Lord British incident. They are transgender and all true gamers know how to deal with them. They are uncomfortable? Sure, they are meant to be. Gamers are elitist by nature, they like to push boundaries, see how much they can push until things break.
If a neo-feminists comes to games without this culture, with her preconception that women are always marginalized, looking for any evidence of sexist behavior, she will surely think she found it because she is going to be attacked just like everyone else is. The difference is that she thinks its because she is a woman.
A gamer woman would just chalk it up to "that guy was a a-hole and I don't want to deal with him anymore." and move on, just like Gevlon's girlfriend did. She would not go on a crusade to eradicate games the promote "wrong behaviors" or proceeded to blame all men in general.
The big war is over in the western world for feminism. Vote is a right, jobs are regulated and discrimination is criminalized, men are cooking in the kitchen. Status: happening. Sure, culture still is adjusting here and there but its by no means the righteous fight it was. That neo-feminists need to reach into hobbys to find relevance is sad. There are many parts of the world were women are seriously mistreated by the WHOLE society, the very laws of some countries oppress women. Focus on that! Rallying up in a feminism fight is those counties however is dangerous, just like it was for the initial suffrage movement women.
So yes, going after gaming behavior is a coward move, it is trying to fight on grounds where the war was already won. Its not that everything is right with gaming and that there are no issues to improve on, its that it doesn't need a whole society wide movement. It is disproportionate and in most instances does more harm to the feminist causes than good.
It's not that we gamers are not listening to the problems, its that all the cries for wolf are drowning out real and far more important things to fix in society.
Again, my apologies to Gevlon for misreading his account of the events.
Anonymous is right in that most gaming communities are toxic to everyone and you can find your favorite "-ism" in them at will.
However this isn't being competitive, otherwise they wouldn't be behind a trade pug on the ladder.
This is just being an ass.
Nobody should harass anyone, sure, but the reactions you are seeing in the gaming world today aren't male gamers harassing people simply because they are women, they are gamers harassing people that have come marching in demanding that their hobby changes
I'm not sure what the word "demanding" means in this context. Feminists aren't making death threats or pushing for games to be banned by the government. They're writing reviews that basically say, "I think that some elements of some games are sexist, and I'm more likely to buy and recommend games that don't have those elements. I know this is just one person's opinion, but maybe you can take it into account when you're planning your next title."
But if that's a "demand", then literally any game review that's not "Flawless! 10/10!" is a "demand".
I don't get it. In your mind, what's the difference between reasonable and unreasonable criticism? Can you provide some real-world examples? (Personally, I think harassment is unreasonable. Also, "I don't agree with harassment, but she totally deserved it for writing negative reviews of videogames" is unreasonable.)
@Chaos
"I'm not sure what the word "demanding" means in this context. Feminists aren't making death threats or pushing for games to be banned by the government. They're writing reviews that basically say, "I think that some elements of some games are sexist, and I'm more likely to buy and recommend games that don't have those elements. I know this is just one person's opinion, but maybe you can take it into account when you're planning your next title.""
Except that's not at all what they are doing. They are stating that it's fundamentally wrong to have a game where any female character has no backstory, and that using visual cues to denote gender is wrong, etc. And they aren't making suggestions, they are trying to stir up hatred against them so that the video game developers are forced to change or get slandered in gaming media. It's no different to how people try to force games to be less violent claiming that video games make people suddenly start stabbing all their friends. Now if a developer makes a game with a single female side character in it, they have to sit there being berated by a bunch of feminist who don't like it. It's simple - don't like it? Don't play it. But leave the rest of us alone.
And reasonable criticisim is where you simply criticise something. Unreasonable criticism is where you attack something, stir up hate while suppressing discussion from any other viewpoints, make up attacks on yourself (there's clear evidence that some of these "harassment" situations have been orchestrated specifically to bring more focus to their complains), and refuse to accept that other people are allowed to enjoy something you don't. I don't like CoD, but that doesn't mean I run around screaming about how everyone that playes it is evil and the game itself should be scrapped.
If you raid a lot, you get also quite some interaction with each other. I simply don't take women in my raiding guild unless they are committed (ie. married). Its nothing personal. It just usually causes a lot of drama, it never ends well. Not necessarily due to the female(s) but if my choice is to kick out 70% of my raiding team who are all amazing but perhaps horny young sexists versus one or a few women then the choice is easily made. Just look at all the drama which happened with Artemishowl and Affinity.
Also doing much better with random raids at the moment, but it doesn't really suprise me. I thought about this for some time at friday, when I managed to clear 7/7 nhc 6/7 hc in about 6 hours raiding time.
Why I think rnd raids (can)suceed:
1. Group of "core" players that often start the raid or join in as a team (tank, good rdps)
2. Failers get kicked sooner or later
3. Every raidmember has the gear and the experience
Compared to that my guild suffers from:
1. Guys with vital Tasks to the sucess of the raid change every week, and so do tanks. Often the new ones have zero experience.
2. No kicks, no replacements available
3. People think "cool im in a guild, if I stop playing for a month I can just attend some guild raids and catch up with the item lvl very quickly"
Most guilds are bad because they are guilds... They invite everyone who has the required item lvl and class, they have no clear idea of the skill Level their members should have and once people are in a guild they often rely on the guild to equip them, instead of trying to push the guild forward by getting better gear.
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